


The One With The Tandem Acts Of Kindness

by silverlining99



Series: Law Enforcement [4]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-08
Updated: 2009-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:37:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverlining99/pseuds/silverlining99





	The One With The Tandem Acts Of Kindness

McCoy is pretty sure that if anyone asked her, Christine could come up with an assortment of answers for why he'd finally caved and gone after her. _That stupid, stupid outfit_ , she might say (and he finds it amusing to think that she might _still_ blush red at the memory of herself and a bar full of rowdy men, nothing but tiny scraps of fabric and _him_ to keep her safe).

Or she might claim it was simple caveman possessiveness, a need to claim her once and for all. Or she might allege him to be a perverted bastard getting off on having her draped across him in public. Hell, she might spout off just about anything, and he can just picture the coy, sidelong smile she'd toss his way as she offered her theory of him, of his actions.

Fact is, McCoy wouldn't be able to answer at all.

He doesn't have the slightest fucking idea.

Christine, truth be told, became a fixture in his life through forces beyond his control, no input from him whatsoever. She earned her place aboard the _Enterprise_ the same as him, and she survived, same as him, and when he was officially granted his permanent posting, he was granted it right alongside an inherited staff, no opportunity to make his own selections except to fill empty positions. She was his head nurse, and that was just the way of it.

Falling for her was, frankly, a similar sort of accident. It bugged the hell out of him, in fact, the first time he looked at her and thought distinctly, crassly, _I want to make her scream_.

That had happened after a long five minutes spent leaning against the wall outside the staff restroom, listening to her vomit and wretch her way through coping with the godawful mess they'd left in the operating room, the ghastly things they'd once called ensigns and crewmates and friends but would now just refer to as casualties. He was waiting for her, ready to give her the rest of the shift off, armed with a few kind words about how the day it got any easier would be the day she needed to quit for not caring enough anymore.

And then she'd walked out with every hair in place, her uniform tidy, her spine straight, and her eyes were swollen and her voice hoarse but she hadn't wavered when she looked him dead-on and said, "I'll see to getting them transferred to the morgue."

It was -- it was a blinding haze of unmitigated desire, was what it was, the things he wanted in that moment. It made him a little sick to his stomach.

She was this _girl_ right there in front of him. Just this sweet little thing trying so hard to hide any trace of the fact that she was still finding her balance in the tumult of the adult word, that she was still feeling out the boundaries of who she could be as an independent adult woman, grown and educated and set loose in the universe with more responsibility than he thought anyone her age should be saddled with.

She'd already landed smack dab in the middle of his professional life with will and determination and a refusal to let anything get the better of her that he found at turns aggravating and endearing. Now there she was, apparently on the verge of doing her damn best to do the same in his emotions. He wanted to haul her in and make her lose her composure, right out in the open, her ingrained resistance be damned.

 _Fuck it_ , he'd thought instead, resentfully, and tried to convince himself that it was better the way it was. Let her have her iron-fisted, obstinate rule of his medical bay, so long as she knew when to yield to him. He was, in fact, just fine with her being exactly who and how she was; he _liked_ her, even, the person she was just about done becoming. He didn't even really have a problem with the quick glances she'd throw him sometimes, the hints of mild, curious interest -- not exactly an uncommon problem, from younger nurses.

He just wasn't okay with having it be anything else, out of the blue, his body and the less rational portions of his mind wanting things without bothering to check in with _him_. He got a handle on the urges, the fantasies, let himself have them but kept it all in check.

Until he didn't. Too much at once, probably, some blend of everything Christine might toss out to excuse the way he'd done a sudden about-face and hasn't looked back since. Bad enough when she'd been tarted up and manhandled right in front of him; suddenly she was half-naked on his lap and more than curious, more than entertaining a mild infatuation, she was _wanting_ something, and it was like every time he looked over her shoulder somebody was looking at _her_ , and he just.

He opened his mouth and he didn't, for once, hold anything back. Done for, just like that.

Sometimes he thinks he resisted in the first place because some part of him knew it would happen exactly like this. Because some part of him thought it would be a bad idea.

Because, honestly, some part of him is an absolute fucking fool.

He has, at least, known that particular fact for a long time, one of many side effects of being friends with Jim. Which... Jim. _Christ_ , but Jim -- talk about things happening to him without warning, and him being too much of an idiot to notice for the goddamn longest time.

There was a point, midway through their first year at the Academy, when McCoy had thought to himself that if he'd only known what kind of chaos would come of it, he might have chosen a different seat on that damn shuttle. But it was one moment in the stress of his first round of exams, and by the end of the year he was inclined to be annoyed if Jim _didn't_ hunt him down at least three times a week for one purpose or another.

These days McCoy thinks -- if he bothers to think about it concretely, which he generally doesn't -- that it's a fucked up fragile life he leads, if the most important friendship he's ever had depends so completely on one encounter, on something so stupid as deciding where to sit.

He's not and never has been a man given to enjoying chance wreaking havoc with his life; he doesn't like the instability of it all, the unpredictability. But it worked in his favor that one time and he wound up with Jim Kirk weaseled deep into his life and daily routine months before he even realized that it was a good thing.

Which he had realized, eventually, at least. What he hadn't realized was that it could still be more, and if Jim had surprised him with his friendship, and Christine had surprised him by being so much more than she tried to let on, he'd surprised himself most of all, with how this thing with Jim has played out.

He had, hand to God, only meant to tease Christine, to wind her up by prodding at the boundaries of her discomfort around Jim in the wake of that stupid mission. Easy to suss out -- for one thing, startling as it was to realize at first, Christine Chapel had layers of all sorts of fascinatingly twisted desires going on under her quiet, self-composed surface, and for another, most of the damn crew had some thing or another going on for their captain, be it hero worship or outright crushes. So he'd figured it a simple enough thing to yank her chain and get her fired up, the first time he eyed her carefully after Jim left their monthly department report meeting, noted the distant expression on her face. He sat back and said, "You wanna fuck Jim, don't you?"

A simple enough thing, too, to pass off his own surge of feelings as the allure of the immediate, startled-doe widening of her eyes. Christine flustered is, always has been, one of the sexiest things he'd ever seen, and her stammered denials led fairly quickly to fucking her right on top of his cluttered desk, hand over her mouth to drown out her loudest cries as he told her to think of it all she wanted so long as she kept her knees closed to anyone but him.

"You're such a possessive asshole," she said lazily, after, as he drew away and refastened his pants. "Neanderthal."

"I didn't hear you complaining a minute ago," he retorted. "Or was that gonna be an 'oh god, oh god, please...be less of a throwback' if I hadn't made you quiet the hell down?"

She laughed and stretched before sitting up and accepting the cloth he tossed her way. "Guess you'll never know."

Except -- except he did know, too damn well, and that was the thing that kept it going, knowing just how much she liked him being _him_ , just how readily she ate up every sign of his need to have her, and to know that she was his, and to know that _she_ knew it. So he teased her with it, with comments about Jim that always led to amazing places, to the release of everything they both kept so carefully buttoned up during the days, out and about on the ship.

And once, once when they had been soothing their nerves with each other after a long shift that had included Jim with a broken arm and a concussion - _Klingons_ , McCoy had thought viciously, so many times that day - she dug her nails into his back and moaned at his first slow push into her, and said, "you know, it's not just me I imagine with the captain."

It probably should have told him something, that he hadn't come so close to coming so fast since he was fifteen years old and totally lacking in any lick of sense or ounce of self-control. He didn't say anything, just pressed his face to her neck and took a moment to gather the shreds of his composure, then went about the business at hand.

But she'd shifted things. What had started as a joke had gone and become an idea, an idea about what it might be like to let Jim splash across this one last part of his life as completely and messily as he'd done with the rest. The more McCoy thought about it the more he wanted it, the more he'd look at Jim and think about touching him, kissing him, fucking him.

Christine was half-asleep in his arms one night when he said, quietly, "we could, you know. Ask Jim."

She pretended she didn't hear him, pretended she was already asleep, but he felt her tense and tremble a little, against him. And the next time Jim came into medical, he didn't miss the way she bit her lip and ducked her head and flared red. He called her into his office a few hours later, said, "I invited Jim to come have dinner. I actually need to figure out something to feed him?"

She stared at him, lips parted, for a very long time before shaking her head sharply and walking out without another word.

Any other time, any other woman, he might have bothered with a moment or two of doubt over what exactly she meant with that reaction. But by that time, with her, he didn't see any need. Just once, when she arrived at his quarters that evening in casual clothes, did he pause and stare her down. "There's still time for me to rustle up some sandwiches or something, if you want."

If she'd had any doubts, she'd put them away. She held his gaze, the familiar, blood-quickening flare of desire in her eyes, said with a studied blandness, "Captain Kirk sandwiched between us sounds pretty good. Any idea what kind of wine would go best?"

It was right about then that McCoy understood, for the first time, that he'd gone and fallen in love somewhere along the way.

It was two weeks later, during their monthly meeting, that he looked over his desk and saw Christine glance wistfully at Jim, saw Jim gamely maintaining his dedicated campaign of pretending, for whatever strange reasons he had, that none of it had ever occurred, and saw, clearly and calmly, that these two people happening to him were possibly the most important developments of his life so far.

Which is, give or take a handful of instances of luring Jim in again (none of which ever required tactics much more complicated than the first he tried: pulling Jim out of his seat and kissing him until he groaned and kissed back), how he wakes up one morning with them still doing it, still _happening_ to him.

He recalls falling asleep with Christine tucked tight against his side, Jim pressed close behind her, but he wakes up flat on his back in the middle of the most hare-brained discussion he's ever been partially privy to. He's got one of them on either side, each propped up on one elbow down by his hips. And they're fucking _snickering_ , their heads conspiratorially close, Christine's hand curled loose and still around the base of his cock and Jim's cradling his balls. "To the left, see?" Christine whispers, and Jim snorts. "It's perfect, too. He pretends he's all about the straight and narrow path --"

"But he's as bent as the rest of us," Jim chortles. "Yeah, I see. But tell me this, Chris -- how do you explain _me_?"

"Aberration," she says easily. "You, sir, are the exception to the rule -- god, you'd have to be deformed." McCoy blinks groggily as she leans in and presses her mouth to him, an open-lipped kiss to the side of his cock. Her tongue flicks briefly and she glances at him when his breath hitches. "Mornin', baby," she says with a warm smile.

Jim looks up and grins, heavy-lidded and perfectly at ease in a way he rarely gets anymore, just these brief moments when he lets himself forget all the burdens of his command. "Hey, Bones." He flexes his hand gently. "D'you sleep okay?"

"Did I -- what the hell are you maniacs _doing_?" he rasps out, glancing between them.

Christine catches and holds his gaze as she tilts her head and puts her mouth on him again, wide and wet and warm, a soft suckle just below the head. "Three guesses," she says, managing a pert tone even in a quiet murmur.

"Christine was just sharing her unified theory of cock with me," Jim offers, more helpfully. "Penile personality profiling, isn't that cool? I'm exempt, though - mine'd have to be a fucking corkscrew, I guess?"

Christine rears her head back with a sharp giggle, shifts to press her face to McCoy's thigh and shake helplessly. He can't help but touch her hair, stroke the back of her head gently. "You're both insane," he grumbles.

"yeah," Jim agrees without concern, and lowers his mouth over McCoy's cock, straight down until his lips meet Christine's fist. She lifts her head to watch and her grip tightens slowly, begins to rise and fall right along with Jim's head.

"We couldn't agree on who got to have you first," Christine says absently, her eyes fixed on Jim. "So we decided to share."

McCoy groans as she dodges in to latch on also, her hand unfurling to make room. Jim acquiesces, limits himself to sucking slowly, firmly on just the head while Christine trails her parted lips up and down the shaft, her tongue dragging across his flesh. Jim fondles his balls and dips his finger lower, pushes it in to the second knuckle.

McCoy wonders, not for the first time, what he ever did to _deserve_ these two just landing in his life like this.

Whatever it was, he decides to just go with it like has so much else. It's not, after all, very likely that he would stand much chance against their two wills combined, not when he's been more or less at their individual mercies for so long as it is.

He feels like he probably should have done a better job of anticipating just what he was getting himself into, is all.

He reaches up to punch the pillow under his head into a higher support, leaves his arm tucked under his head. Christine pauses and rubs his stomach and smiles at him. "Comfy?" He just twitches an eyebrow at her and her grin broadens. "Good," she says, "...where was I?"

She presses a small kiss to his hip and flicks a glance at him. "Not quite," he says lazily, and her next is more centered, just below his navel, her neck craning to reach. "Little lower," he suggests, and she laughs softly against the trail of hair creeping up his belly and licks down along it, rejoins Jim in working him over. She starts at the base and makes her way up, excruciatingly slow, the quick flirtations of her tongue a maddening contrast to Jim's firm licks, the steady pressure of his mouth. When she crowds into Jim's space she doesn't go down again, just reaches and caresses Jim's shoulder, and they both draw back to stare at each other in some silent conversation that involves quick glances skittering about and a slowly spreading smile on Jim's face.

Christine tilts her head slowly. Jim tilts his the opposite way. As one, they lean back in and seal their mouths over the head of McCoy's cock, sideways, a slow, courteous coordination. Jim is all strong lips and firm suction, Christine lighter and breathier, her tongue gliding over McCoy's skin and teasing out the most sensitive spots. The maddening confusion of it all makes McCoy's body itch with a pleasant buzz, makes him grit his teeth and struggle to hold still for them after a minute.

Then Christine licks at the corner of Jim's mouth when they crowd each other's space. She hitches over a little, her breasts dragging across McCoy's thigh, and Jim shifts easily into kissing her full on. McCoy can't even resent being momentarily abandoned, transfixed by the sight of them lewdly making out over the sprawl of his legs. He stares at the flutter of Christine's lashes over the thin skin under her eyes, at the flex of cartilage in Jim's throat as his jaw works.

He's so goddamn lucky it makes his chest ache, abruptly, to take note of it.

Christine whimpers softly and clutches at Jim's shoulderblade, breaks away panting for breath. "Have at him," she murmurs after a second, and gives Jim one last, quick kiss before leaning back on her elbow, ceding the territory. Jim grins at her, ruffles her hair, then casts a smug glance at McCoy before dipping low and engulfing his cock again, deep, nose brushing McCoy's hip.

"Jesus fuck," McCoy gasps. His hips lift helplessly and Jim hums quietly, sets into his endeavor earnestly, enthusiastically. He does terrible, impossible things with his tongue, curling it here, stroking it flat and firm there, cranking up the tension until McCoy feels like there's a heat source deep in his groin right on the verge of setting his blood to boil. " _Jim_."

Christine laughs up at him. "Let him finish you," she suggests serenely, stroking his stomach, reaching to scrape her thumbnail across one nipple. McCoy just shakes his head, fighting not to buck up too forcefully into Jim's mouth, struggling to rein it in, and she follows his gaze to Jim's bobbing head for a moment. "Hm. He is good with his mouth, isn't he? You just want him to go on forever."

She crawls up slowly and settles against McCoy's side, leans over him to catch his mouth and kiss him hard, hungry. Jim takes advantage and moves to re-situate himself, elbowing McCoy's knees apart so he can stretch out comfortably, take all the space he wants. "On the other hand, if you'd hurry up and come in his mouth already," Christine murmurs breathlessly, after a minute, "then he could fuck me, and you could watch, and when you're ready again you could have me, too."

McCoy looks into her eyes, her sparkling, teasing, happy eyes, and falls for her all over again. He palms the back of Jim's head and lets go, lets his feet dig into the bed and his hips rise and his release wash through him, breaking the tension, leaving him with nothing but Jim, sucking him dry, and Christine, nuzzling against his cheek, making a soft, satisfied noise. She shifts to press her mouth close to his ear, whispers, "I love you," puts the words there between them for the first time.

He rocks up into Jim's mouth a final time and relaxes, and draws her lips back to his. He tangles his fingers in her hair, gets a fistful of messy waves. " _Good_ ," he mutters, aching again with the enormity of everything that she makes him feel, that _they_ make him feel. "I'd hate to think I was the only one."

Jim draws off and shifts, hitches up a little to press his face to McCoy's stomach, licks quickly before resting his chin on McCoy's abs, eyes cast up to watch them. "Only one what?"

Christine eases back with a few last, quick kisses and props herself up on her elbow, gazes at McCoy steadily, a little warily. "The only one gone totally stupid in love with a couple of nutcases," he says slowly, and her smile is slow but blinding, and he looks away from it, to Jim.

Jim blinks. He looks at Christine, who reaches and catches his hand and tangles their fingers together. "Yeah," he says reluctantly, in an oddly detached tone. "That...sounds like something that would really suck."

After a second, Christine laughs nervously. "Don't be so quick to knock sucking," she scolds uneasily.

McCoy moves his legs, jostles Jim until he gets the picture and lifts up so that McCoy can sit up and arrange pillows behind his back, and shift so that when he relaxes, his shoulders are propped up in an easy curl. "Come here," he orders, and Jim crawls immediately forward, between his legs. McCoy pulls him down and kisses him hard, deep. "Jim," he says roughly. He doesn't know what else to say, doesn't like the familiar shuttering he sees in Jim's eyes.

"Hey, it's cool," Jim says, light as ever. "I got it, Bones."

"Do you?"

And Jim kisses him this time, keeps it slow, careful. "Sure," he replies, and McCoy can hear it as the lie it is, even as Jim presses his lips to McCoy's throat. McCoy touches his waist and exerts easy pressure, silently tells Jim to lie down and turn onto his back, to rest there reclined against McCoy. "Christine," McCoy says tightly, and circles his palms over Jim's chest. "You believe him?"

Christine, sitting up next to them, rests her hand on Jim's stomach. "No," she says after a long pause. She meets his eyes and holds his gaze and he tries to make her understand without saying any of it. She nods, like she does, like she gets it, she's on the same page. "I don't believe he believes _us_ ," she adds, and she leans in and takes Jim's mouth with hers, a long, slow, delicate kiss. "I thought you were supposed to be a genius, dummy," she murmurs.

"You - you should watch out there, Chris," Jim says with a weak laugh. "You're starting to sound like him." McCoy pinches a nipple in retaliation and Jim squirms even as Christine climbs over them. Drawing his knees up, McCoy plants his feet wide to give her room and she crawls up along Jim until she can hover over him, grasp his cock and drag it along her slick folds.

"I lied before," she says suddenly, and begins to sink down on him. "Slim and proud and strong, just like you."

"What can I say," Jim says with a smirk, just the slightest catch in his breath betraying him, "I'm just perfect all around."

Christine pushes down hard and jabs a finger into his side as she lifts and does it again. Jim grimaces, squeezes his eyes closed, and McCoy angles his head to nip at the blunt angle of Jim's jaw. "Don't forget his fat head," he mutters.

Jim barks out a sharp laugh and tips his face back to let McCoy get at his mouth. "Be honest, Bones," he mumbles. "That's totally your favorite thing about me, isn't it?"

McCoy sucks Jim's tongue and rakes his fingers through Christine's hair as she palms Jim's ribs and rolls her hips, moves on him determinedly, curls in to bite and lick across his chest. "There is no favorite thing, dumbass," McCoy says quietly. Christine takes over when he draws away, keeps Jim quiet with her lips. McCoy grabs Jim's hands and guides his arms around Christine's back, joins him in holding her close as she rocks down on him. "There's _you_."

With a harsh noise, Jim surges up into Christine, clutching at her, fingers twisted with McCoy's. "Chris," Jim gasps, and wrenches one hand free to snake between them, to touch her. "Chris, please."

McCoy can tell from the change in her pace, from the catch of her breath, that she's fighting the inevitable. "Say it," she insists, her voice strained. "Say you believe it."

"I believe it, I swear, _please_ , god, _fuck_!"

"Believe what?" McCoy murmurs for her. She's too close, can't keep her focus. "Say it, Jim."

"You -- you love me," Jim chokes out. He curls his hand so tightly that McCoy's knuckles pop as his fingers are pulled along. Christine whines sharply and shudders violently, presses her face to Jim's neck and muffles the loudest of her cries. "Oh god," he gasps, and his shoulders dig down into McCoy's chest as his hips snap up, as he fights for the leverage he needs. "Fuck, I can't - I can't."

McCoy untangles his hand and pushes Jim to sit up, Christine helping tug him up as she realizes what's needed. He manages to shift awkwardly out from behind Jim and stretches out alongside them as Jim flops back and then flips Christine under him, shocking a startled, breathless laugh from her. He pushes up onto his arms and surges into her fast, desperate, and McCoy settles a hand on the small of his back, feels the flow of Jim's hurried, faltering rhythm. Christine wraps her arm around Jim's other side, rests her fingers atop his. "It's okay, Jim," he says firmly. "Let it go."

Jim comes with a harsh sound and his arms buckle and he just barely manages to catch himself on his elbows. "Oh man," he whispers. McCoy strokes up along his spine and squeezes the back of his neck, kneading the taut muscles until they start easing up. Jim relaxes slowly, kisses Christine, nudges his hips slowly against her as she murmurs contentedly and rubs his back. "Me too," he mumbles between kisses, and he groans when McCoy leans in and nips firmly at his shoulder. "Okay? Me too, both of you, I just--"

"Shhh," Christine says softly. "Leave it there." She tips him to the side, rolls just enough to deliver Jim into the space between her and McCoy. McCoy wraps his arm around both of them and presses his face to Jim's damp neck, licks at the salty flesh.

Jim twists his head back, searches out McCoy's mouth. "Bones," he says quietly. "This isn't how it was supposed to happen."

Yeah, McCoy thinks, I know. He kisses Jim into silence before settling and closing his eyes, tired again. "But it's how it did," he mutters. Christine's palm settles against his ribcage, fingers tickling affectionately before going still. "Just run with it, Jim. Trust me - it's easier that way."


End file.
